


Liquid Revenge

by space_oddity_75



Category: Cabin Pressure
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Angst, Divorce, Drinking to Cope, Excessive Drinking, Family Drama, Gen, Past Relationship(s), younger Douglas
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-25
Updated: 2014-09-25
Packaged: 2018-02-18 18:29:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,122
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2357891
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/space_oddity_75/pseuds/space_oddity_75
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A snippet of Douglas Richardson's past, on the day his first wife left him and took their young daughter Verity with her, leaving him alone to pick up the pieces. </p>
<p>Warning for angst and heavy drinking. One-shot.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Liquid Revenge

**Author's Note:**

> \- This is my first CP fic, so please bear with me. Constructive criticism is highly appreciated.   
> \- Betaed by the wonderful Jay_Eagle. Thank you so much!!!

The first glass burned down his throat like liquid revenge. A promise of oblivion, blessed numbness of the mind. 

He was trying to feel detached from the whole situation, pretending it was not as devastating as it felt. And he was failing miserably.

She'd packed up and left with Verity while he was away, the ungrateful cow. Hadn't even deigned to face him before walking out, even going as far as to tape her goodbye letter to the fridge door, like a bloody shopping list. He'd torn it into countless little pieces without reading it, but the gesture hadn't helped a bit. 

Their daughter's room was so eerily empty it had made him shiver. Only a few clothes and her favourite teddy had been taken, the one dressed as a pilot with whom she always fell asleep at night. The rest of her toys were still sitting neatly on their shelves, as if waiting for Verity to come back and play with them again tomorrow. Somehow, he doubted that was going to happen anytime soon.

His whole world had suddenly been tipped sideways, and he was struggling to regain his balance. Tears of frustration threatened to spill from his eyes, but he swallowed them back like nasty medicine. 

He downed a second glass without even feeling it.

This debacle was mostly his wife's fault, that much he was sure about. Her insistence on getting married while they were still very young, the constant fighting over all sorts of silly little things, her pig-headed determination to try and try for a baby that just wouldn't come. Every little problem would turn into a huge weight they carried upon their shoulders, a weight that got heavier every day. When she'd finally got pregnant, things between them had already started to turn sour, and only the sheer sense of duty towards their barely-existing family had kept them together for so long. It had all piled up into a mountain of anger and frustration constantly threatening to slide down and bury them both underneath it. Until one day it had. 

He was not a sentimental fool.

He should have seen it coming. 

And yet it still burned.

His frown was reflected by the surface of the newly refilled tumbler in his hands. Thirty-four years old and already a failed marriage upon his shoulders. A remarkable achievement indeed, Douglas Richardson. 

He couldn't even fight for custody, what with his stressful job and its awkward timetables. But he would fight till the bitter end for visitation rights. He didn't want his daughter to grow up without a father. She was only three years old, and she deserved better.

Leaning on the kitchen counter, he sighed and drained the glass in one swift movement, the familiar warm buzz finally starting to spread across his body. Was this the third or the fourth one he'd had tonight? The bottle was still half full. Maybe he should just stop counting, pour himself another measure and try to get his mind to focus on something that was not his soon-to-be ex-wife while he still could. If he went on like that, he mused, by the time he'd reached the second half of the bottle he'd be so plastered that the knot in his stomach would have dissolved into the whisky anyway.

Having just established that this monumental failure was hardly his fault, why was he still feeling this raw pain in his chest? There was bound to be something else in life worth having besides a pretty little family and a cozy little home, wasn't there? 

Once again the glass was filled and emptied in one go, the amber liquid pooling into his stomach like warm apple juice, all taste forgotten, its effect almost lost in the whirlwind of his thoughts.

He ran a hand through his short, dark hair, massaging his scalp. His wife had always preferred him to wear a sensible haircut that made him look nice and professional, and he'd kept it like that for a while, mostly to please her. Now that she was gone, he wondered whether he should let it grow longer again. As long as he kept it in a neat style, he doubted his captain would mind.

His captain. The best mentor a young first officer could ever wish for. He was one of the few people Douglas really looked up to, someone who believed in him and his natural skills as a pilot. He thought that maybe he should raise a glass to the man, so he did.

His captain's constant praise was the reason he'd been recommended for a career advancement at Air England and hoped to have a fourth stripe on his uniform by the end of the year. He'd been told about it officially that very morning and had come home early to celebrate with his wife, only to find her gone. 

He tried to cheer himself up a bit with the thought of how good the extra bar was going to look on his epaulettes. While the rest of his life was spiralling downwards, at least his career was still going somewhere. But it was a bittersweet victory, as he had no-one to share it with.

As the grandfather clock in the living room struck midnight, he wondered whether he should have another glass before bedtime. He had a flight in a few hours and really needed to get some sleep, but the empty double bed upstairs felt cold and uninviting, while the whisky in front of him looked warm and friendly enough for him to want to keep it company a little bit longer. 

He downed another couple of glasses for good measure, his hand shaking only slightly. He'd always been pretty good at handling his alcohol, and doubted the captain would complain if his first officer was looking a bit under the weather in the morning. After all, he'd seen his commander fly with a hangover more than once, hands always steady, judgment never impaired. A real Sky God, that was his captain. 

Exhaling slowly, he downed the dregs of the whisky and then wobbled to the living room, hoping to be able to sleep off the pain and the confusion of that horrible night.

On the way there, he noticed his uniform jacket draped neatly over a nearby chair, a reminder that there was still something worth fighting for, after all. He picked some invisible lint off it, thought about the number of painkillers he'd need to combat tomorrow's headache, then dragged himself to the nearest armchair and sank heavily into it, finally letting his mind drift into numbness.

The hell with everything. He was Douglas Richardson, and one day he'd be a Sky God, too.


End file.
